How Many Jobs Created or Lost Under Obama? (October 2012 update)

The following numbers are for October 2012. For latest reports and numbers, please click one of the links above.

How Many Jobs Has Obama Created or Lost as of October 2012? Keep Reading.. Answer is Below

Fact check on jobs numbers...

The first section of numbers DOES include jobs numbers WITH the benchmark revisions which were announced September 27, 2012. The benchmark revisions will NOT be included in the official BLS data until January 2013. The second set of numbers DOES NOT include the benchmark revisions. Benchmark revisions added 386,000 jobs in total and 453,000 private sector jobs. Information about these revisions can be found HERE.

Numbers for October WITH benchmark revisions:

How many jobs created or lost under Obama?

How many private sector jobs have been lost or added during Obama's presidency?

Since the "trough" of the recession in late 2009/early 2010 in seasonally adjusted numbers:

Since the stimulus was passed (# as of March 12, 2009) in seasonally adjusted numbers:

2,103,000 MORE jobs in total

2,724,000 MORE private sector jobs

2,630,000 MORE people working

Since the beginning of Obama's first Fiscal Year (October 2009) in seasonally adjusted numbers:

4,609,000 MORE jobs in total

5,195,000MORE private sector jobs

4,983,000 MORE people working

Have any private jobs been lost (net) over the past 32 months?NO!

32 months of consecutive private-sector job growth.

Have any jobs been lost (net) over the past 25 months?NO!

25 months of consecutive over all job growth.

Numbers for October WITHOUT benchmark revisions:

How many jobs created or lost under Obama?

How many private sector jobs have been lost or added during Obama's presidency? (All seasonally adjusted numbers.)

Since the "trough" of the recession in late 2009/early 2010:

4,511,000 MORE jobs in total

4,972,000 MORE private sector jobs

5,416,000 MORE people working

Since Bush left office & Obama took office (January 2009):

194,000 MORE jobs in total

759,000 MORE private sector jobs

1,197,000 MORE people working

Since the stimulus was passed (# as of March 12, 2009):

1,717,000 MORE jobs in total

2,271,000 MORE private sector jobs

2,2630,000 MORE people working

Since the beginning of Obama's first Fiscal Year (October 2009):

4,223,000 MORE jobs in total

4,742,000MORE private sector jobs

4,983,000 MORE people working

Have any private jobs been lost (net) over the past 32 months?

NO!

32 months of consecutive private-sector job growth.

Have any jobs been lost (net) over the past 25 months?NO!

25 months of consecutive over all job growth.

(Explanations and detail below. Keep reading.)

How many jobs have been lost or gained during the Obama administration? Have more new jobs been created or have more jobs been lost under Obama to date?

Summary:

We are in positive territory when we look at total jobs numbers, private jobs numbers, and people working compared to the "trough" of the jobs recession in late 2009/early 2010.

We are also in positive territory when we look at total jobs numbers, private jobs numbers, and people working compared to the start of Obama's first Fiscal Year in office which started October 1, 2009.

When we look at the BLS benchmark revisions, we are in positive territory in terms of total jobs numbers, numbers of people working, and private sector jobs since Obama took office.

We are now adding jobs at a fair clip, with an average of 173,000 MORE jobs total added per month since December 2010 with the revised benchmarked data, and an average of 187,000 MORE jobs added per month in the private sector since December 2010 with the revised benchmarked data.

Here's a summary of data from the BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics). All numbers lost to the "trough" of the recession reflect ALL non-farm jobs lost between the time Obama took office and the lowest point of the recession in late 2009/early 2010. These numbers DO reflect the new benchmarks:

(Note: All of the jobs numbers are NET numbers. In other words, we know that jobs are lost and added every month, in good years and in bad. The numbers reported here, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers, are "net" numbers; that is, the number of jobs gained after the number of jobs lost is subtracted, or the number of jobs lost after the number of jobs gained is added.)

Seasonally adjusted:

All jobs lost from the time Obama took office to "trough" (bottom of recession): .....4,317,000

*Though, as of July 2012, we still had fewer jobs (in adjusted numbers) than when President Obama took office, jobs are being added at a faster clip under Obama than under George Bush at the same time in his presidency. At this point in Bush's presidency (July 2004), there were still 978,000 fewer jobs than when he was inaugurated in January 2001 (compared to 316,000 fewer for Obama). The number of jobs didn't eclipse the number when Bush was first inaugurated until February 2005, in Bush's second term. (This will be updated for October in the next few days.)

How many private sector jobs have been gained or lost since Obama took office?

Seasonally adjusted:

Private-sector jobs lost to "trough" (bottom of recession): .....4,212,000

*(This is the number often used by Obama and the Democrats as the number of private jobs created since the "trough" of the recession . It is a correct number, but it is a seasonally-adjusted number. In "real" unadjusted numbers [the actual number of jobs that your family and neighbors have], there are 7,919,000 MORE private sector jobs than there were at the "trough" of the recession.)

Net GAIN in seasonally-adjusted private-sector jobs since Obama took office: ....1,212,000 with revisions

*Though, as of July 2012, we still had fewer private-sector jobs (in adjusted numbers) than when President Obama took office, jobs are being added at a faster clip under Obama than under George Bush at the same time in his presidency. At this point in Bush's presidency (July 2004), there were still 1,749,000 FEWER private sector jobs than when he was inaugurated in January 2001 (compared to 332,000 MORE for Obama). The number of private-sector jobs didn't eclipse the number when Bush was first inaugurated until June 2005, in Bush's second term. (This number will be updated for October in a few days.)

How many government jobs have been gained or lost since Obama took office?

Seasonally adjusted:

Government jobs lost from Obama's inauguration to "trough" (bottom of recession): .....105,000

Government jobs lost since "trough": .....393,000 (with revisions)

The peak of government jobs since Obama was inaugurated, not counting Census 2010 workers, occurred in April 2009. There were 21,675,000 government jobs that month. That's 99,000more government jobs than we had in January 2009.

Government jobs lost since that peak in April 2009: 1,053,000 (with revisions)

Net LOSS in seasonally-adjusted government jobs since Obama took office: ....632,000 (with revisions)

"Raw:" numbers not seasonally adjusted:

Government jobslostto "trough": .....95,000

Government jobs lost since "trough": .....50,000 (with revisions)

NetLOSS in "raw" unadjusted government jobs since Obama took office: .....145,000 with revisions

How many more or fewer people are working since Obama took office?

Seasonally adjusted:

Fewer people working to "trough" (bottom of recession): .....3,786,000

More people working since "trough": .....4,983,000

Net GAIN in seasonally-adjusted number of workers (people employed) jobs since Obama took office: ....1,197,000

"Raw:" numbers not seasonally adjusted:

Fewer people working to "trough": .....3,627,000

More people working sincesince "trough": .....7,230,000

Net GAIN in "raw" unadjusted number of workers (people employed) since Obama took office: .....3,603,000

(Note: All of my employment number reports are based on monthly reports and data published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Monthly numbers reports are based on the monthly Employment Situation Report. The Employment Situation report includes month over month and year over year numbers of jobs and workers. My analysis is taken from the monthly BLS data copied to an Excel spreadsheet every month. I calculate detailed percentage increases/decreases, 3 month numbers, 2011 to date numbers, and I compare jobs numbers to those at the time of Obama's inauguration and at the "trough" of the recession. As the BLS revises its numbers as new information is available, I use the latest available numbers in my monthly articles, which means that those numbers may differ slightly from numbers published in previous months.)

People working full-time at peak, November 2007: 121,875,000People working full-time, January 2009: 115,830,000 (a loss of about 6,000,000 full-time workers in 14 months.)People working full-time at trough, December 2009: 110,508,000 (a loss of about 5,000,000 full time workers.)

Total loss of full-time employment: about 11,000,000 people.

People working full-time, October 2011, a year ago: 112,841,000 (a gain of about 2 million full-time workers since the "trough".)

People working full-time now, October 2012: 115,459,000 (a gain of about 5 million full-time workers since the "trough", a gain of about 2.6 million full-time workers in the past year.)

I'll have to see if I can find a site that actually has figures of people who have benefits.

How can the umenployment rate be .1 % higher since taking office yet your claim is there is a net increase in jobs? And to top that off $6,000,000,000,000.00 has been spent for a increase in the unemployment rate. Your numbers are spun to make a point that 56 million Americans bought into and voted for higher spending and higher unemployment over the next four years. Good luck America, look no further than Greece to see your future.

About the 6T first: You should really ask your Repub friends in Congress about that one. Almost all of the Repubs in Congress voted for the tax cuts for the rich, the two unending wars, the unpaid for Medicare Part D, and the economic conditions that led to the meltdown. And you are including debt from FY 2009, which was started (and budgeted for) before Obama came into office.

As I have said over and over, Republicans complaining about the debt are like pigeons complaining about bird crap.

About the unemployment rate: I've written this over and over again. It's a FRACTION:

It's ARITHMETIC, Anonymous, something which appears to elude you which is why you wind up voting Republican and believing all of the right-wing hooey about the U.S. becoming Greece, etc.

Think of pizzas. Let's say you have a thin crust pizza that is 12 inches in diameter and a thin crust pizza that is 16 inches in diameter. You cut each pizza into 12 equal pieces. Now, assuming you like pizza, which piece of pizza would you want.. One from a 12 inch pie or one from a 16 inch pie?

That's what happened: The pizza, the total number of workers and the total number of jobs, is bigger than it was in January 2009. So the total number of jobs is higher even after you take out the piece that represents the unemployed.

I'm trying to keep an open mind; could you explain the U3 and U6 rates?http://portalseven.com/employment/unemployment_rate.jsphttp://portalseven.com/employment/unemployment_rate_u6.jsp

From these graphs it appears that, even though the pizza has grown, the number of people needing pizza has grown even more. If we create 4 million jobs, but we need to create, say, 5 million, isn't it still not good enough? I'm just trying to understand this, so please explain.

Thanks!-a different anonymous, too lazy to type in his incredibly long google password. :)

The unemployment rate is and always has been based on the whole pizza.

If you think the number of jobs created to date isn't good enough (and it isn't), then write to your Congresscritters, particularly if you have Republican CongressCritters, and tell them to support the President's jobs bill and the veteran's jobs bill that the Republicans in Congress filibustered and/or refused to consider over the past year.

We can only imagine how much better we'd be doing if the Republicans had not made it their number 1 priority to make Obama a one-term President. They cared more about that than they did about you and me and all of the rest of the people in this country.

The U-3 has been the official unemployment rate for decades now. The U-6 rate should not be ignored, but nobody really paid any attention to it until the last couple of years, which Republican critics, seeing the U-3 unemployment rate decreasing, jumped to insist that the "real" unemployment rate was the U-6.

The U-6 rate, in addition to the regular unemployed (the people not working who have looked for work in the past month), counts discouraged workers and marginally attached workers (people who have looked for work in the past year and want a job but have not for some reason looked in the past month) and people working part-time who want full-time work.

There are a few problems with the U-6 rate. For one thing, if you aren't out there looking for work recently, in the past month, how can you expect to get hired? Secondly, if a person can't make ONE employment contact over the past month, one phone call, one resume, one application.. does that person REALLY want a job? That's a pretty low bar: ONE contact in the past four weeks?

About the part-time workers: Even though people who SAY they want full-time work are included in the count, it is unclear if people actually must have looked for full-time work in the past month to be counted. Again, WANTING full-time work won't get you full-time work; in my estimation, you've got to be making some efforts to be considered in this alternate unemployment rate.

I appreciate intelligent comments and questions, including those that are at odds with anything posted here. I have elected not to screen comments before they are published; however, any comments that are in any way insulting, caustic, or intentionally inflammatory will be deleted without notice. Spam will also be immediately deleted.